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Our Mind-Boggling Sense of Smell - Issue 91: The Amazing Brain - Nautilus
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Certain smells that are associated in our minds to events or locations from the past, trigger our memories to revisit them. This association of the past through the sense of smell works better and is more vivid than the sense of touch or sight.
Example: Smelling the pages of a new book may remind us of late-night reading as a kid.
According to a 2004 research, the sense of smell is a complicated process.
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Key Ideas
Our molecular clock inside our cells aims to keep us in sync with the sun.
When we disregard this circadian rhythm, we are at a greater risk for illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and dementia.
Thomas Edison said that sleep is "a bad habit." Like Edison, we seem to think of sleep as an adversary and try to fight it at every turn. The average American sleeps less than the recommended seven hours per night, mostly due to electric lights, television, computers, and smartphones.
However, we are ignoring the intricate journey we're designed to take when we sleep.
When we fall asleep, the nearly 86 billion neurons in our brain starts to fire evenly and rhythmically. Our sensory receptors become muffled at the same time.
The first stage of shallow sleep lasts for about 5 minutes.
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Key Ideas
A complete loss of smell, known as anosmia, can occur after a cold, sinus infection or even a bump to the head.
Anosmia affects the flavour of food. However, it isn't always permanent and may recover naturally or through exercises like 'smell training' to re-stimulate the olfactory system.